Glory (1989), presented on Tuesday at the IGCIC, alongside other movies during the African American Film Festival all this week, ends with an image that may seem intriguing to most of us: the St. Gaudens in Boston Common (Col. Shaw and his coloured regiment). This bas-relief honours the white Civil War officer, Robert Gould Shaw, and the black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.

This is a still representation recalled in the beginning and closing images of Edward Zwick?s movie, arguably one of the most successful Civil War films, with those dead corpses lying over the battlefields. At the beginning, all the soldiers are white and they lie on the green grass. In the end, all the Yankees are black, save two white officers, and they repose on the white sands of a beach, near the Confederates? held Fort Wagner.

The coast, where the battle is happening, also suggests the other side of the Atlantic, namely West Africa. One can?t escape the symbolic power of such images, which are sometimes heavily (the thick, loud and sometimes lachrymose soundtrack, by James Horner, is much to be blamed here) but quite convincingly handed most of the times.

These opening and closing climaxes are remarkable, as wars, or more precisely, struggles find their real meaning. While war?s motivations are not always clear, the sense of struggle can be related to a noble cause. As Shaw falls on the battlefield, his comrades, after a moment of hesitation decide to take over and launch the attack against the confederates.

Was it the will of the director to oppose a slightly self-effacing actor to the stronger characterization of the coloured? As Col. Shaw, Matthew Broderick is apt and sympathetic, but the young Denzel Washington, Jihmi Kennedy, and the charismatic Morgan Freeman outshine him. They support the epic quality of the film. A moment of history relayed by a not too Manichean movie which has stood the test of time.